When you’re a young kid, playing at the level Kobbie Mainoo is, you sometimes try to prove why you are there.
I know from my own experience that you feel you always have to show what you can do, and you can end up trying too hard.
Kobbie’s not like that, though. He won’t try to push it and over-play.
I’ve watched him closely and the first 30% of passes of the ball he gets in a game, in those opening minutes, he is happy just playing the ball short, five or 10 yards, waiting for the right moment for his natural raw ability to come out.
Then, when the moment comes – and he knows exactly when – he can give you that little bit of ‘wow’ factor where he draws someone out, breaks the press or when the opposition think they are going to nick the ball off him.
There are those times when they have got him down a blind alley but he somehow just comes out the end anyway and you are left going: ‘oh my god.’
What he is doing is a part of the game – and I heard Gareth Southgate say this too, by the way – that he makes look very easy, but is actually one of the most difficult things.
Ask any midfielder what it is like to receive the ball from your defence with your back to play, not knowing what is behind you and with people pressing you from behind from different angles, but being able to feel where they are and still get out.
Read more from Ferdinand on Mainoo
Kobbie Mainoo,Gareth Southgate
